


Run, Neon Tiger

by cruentum



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-31
Updated: 2013-08-31
Packaged: 2017-12-25 05:34:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/949196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cruentum/pseuds/cruentum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur could live the life his father wanted, without hiding from 'copters and trying to build the resistance in a dystopian world, but it wouldn't be a life worth living without Merlin.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Run, Neon Tiger

**Author's Note:**

> Originally written for Merlin_holidays in 2011.

They had a small collection of things, trinkets and trash they'd picked up over the years and stashed where neither the damp nor the mice could get at them: small figurines, an umbrella with Mickey Mouse print and a few broken glasses and more broken bottles. The glass shook, clattering, when a 'copter passed by low. Arthur stood at the window, cigarette dangling from his fingers and looked down at the traffic on the street below, nodded to the 'copter pilot behind his double visor, ignoring the shakes in his limbs. He'd always pretend to be enough of an upstanding citizen. The snow mush had been mostly cleared away, leaving the dirt of the modern city behind. A few people stood scattered around a lit trash can, a few shots in the distance and more sirens. The 'copter veered off to the left behind their block.

"They're patrolling more again," Arthur said as he slid down to crouch underneath the window sill, blowing out smoke with his exhale.

Across the room Merlin was fiddling with an old style radio that would never work with the new waves they were using now, but Arthur didn't have the heart to tell him to leave it and toss it out the window or sell it for a few credits they could actually use.

Not now, though he might later tonight when the constant jangle and fizzle of dead-end magic made him pulse with irritation and he had Merlin pinned against the wall by his scruff before he could so much as squeak for a reprieve.

He'd still crawl into bed with him after, and Arthur couldn't deny him that.

"Your father is still looking for you," Merlin said, speaking to the radio.

"He's not looking where he'd find me," Arthur replied, snapping, and Merlin poked a hole through the speaker membrane, then tossed the piece of trash radio at Arthur's feet. It skated past his ankles and hit the wall behind him. Arthur picked it up, turned it over in his hand, then stretched and dropped it back in Merlin's lap with a pat to his head, the type you give fools and the easily amused, dodging Merlin's swipe at his legs.

"I'm out to work. We're short of..." Arthur looked around their room, the shit they'd picked up over the years, Merlin more than him, "...everything."

Merlin was still vibrating with emotions when Arthur shut the door on him and made his way down the steps. He could feel him most days, at least through a few walls, and one of these days a scanner would pick it up from the outside but Arthur's contingency plans were legendary.

He kept his head down and his hands to himself, keeping a steady pace outside, making sure to not stop, not let anyone stop him either with a story and a few handfuls of credits thrown his way only to turn around and try to take them all and more of him with a taser to his skull or heart.

Arthur walked past the pretty boys and the broken girls, their cocks out and their tits showing as they begged for a fuck for credits he didn't have. He pushed past the meat bars and circus tents, the freak show tenner bets going strong with a death every round for a poor fool who thought he could take whatever they were throwing at him; past the Serve The Empire shops with their barred windows and scared looking slick twenty-something employees sitting in their own cage; past the hostels and the hovels and the groups of third class pretties who were going for a quarter the rate.

The queue for the factory stretched around two blocks, and Arthur got in line at the end. He pushed his hands into the pockets of his coat and waited. They progressed a step a minute at the most. The slow shuffle was barely enough to keep them warm and awake. Arthur busied himself, humming the stupid songs from years ago.

"Elena's tonight," someone said, brushing past him, catching his hand before he'd disappeared around the corner. The flick and swish of the hair the last Arthur saw before he had to take another step to avoid breaking the rhythm.

The factory stretched large overhead when he finally made it inside. He signed his name Y Pen as the last Fuck You to his father, and donned the clothing. None of them spoke, all of them looking too tired to even think a clear thought as they went to work on the machine, replacing the masked and faceless hands before them.

Sweat ran down Arthur's back within minutes of starting the work, his arms heavy not long after. He buckled through though, for the few credits (less than the first grade pretties, less than the freaks, but at least he worked for the Empire) to buy something on and off the markets. They moved towards the left one step at a time, just another type of soldier.

This. Will. Kill. ran through his mind with the shrup-shrup-shrup of the tool in his hand on the metal, but he blocked it out, thought of Merlin with the radio in his lap and the fucking wonder on his face when he touched his fingertips to his knee and magic sizzled between skin and skin.

Arthur lost track of time then, and was almost caught by surprise by the end of the line even if his body wasn't, dragging heavy and tired when he stepped around to pull on his coat again. He didn't bother with the grimy showers and meagre soup, only stepped around to open his hand for a few chips. He kept them in his fist and his fist in his pocket as he pushed out into the cold, shouldering past the first vultures who wanted to take the credits off anyone at first opportunity.

He made it to the markets unaccosted, paid his credits at the stands for a bit of food and more water, more credits for a handful of screws for Merlin's radio while a new membrane ate the last of it, the paper from around the corner. Snow had started coming down outside again as he hurried past the freaks and the pretties, evaded someone puckering his lips at him and waving a cheque book at his face. "I'd pay you twenty if you'll do it now."

Arthur shouldered past him and back to their block, plastic bag clutched to his chest. He felt Merlin before he opened the door and wasn't surprised to see the soft glow of magic around him.

"You won't even feel it when they shoot you," Arthur said.

Merlin jerked around, glow disappearing with it, leaving the stark darkness behind, only Merlin's eyes pale grey in the room.

"The 'copter will be up to the window and you won't hear it, or see it, one shot and your brains will be splattered about the fucking stupid umbrella, giving Mickey Mouse an amazing smile." The screws clanged when Arthur shoved the plastic bag onto the small table, not caring that it slid across and dropped off the other side.

"They wouldn't know," Merlin said, pushing his chin out and up. "They'd never know, and I could blast them if they did. Blow up their 'copter and them in it."

"And the next one?"

"Blow it up."

"And the one after?" Arthur asked, voice breaking as he moved through the room. "And the one after that? And after that? And after that?" he asked, voice getting louder. He crowded Merlin against their bookcase with his collection of trinkets and the few books Arthur had stolen when he left his father and his fucking life for Merlin. "And the one after that?" he said and punctuated it with the palm of his hand smacking against the wall next to Merlin's head.

Arthur felt Merlin's breath on his skin, hard and angry, the tense lines of his body underneath his own. Merlin's chest expanded with every breath. "Blow it up," Merlin whispered, eyes wide and looking a bit crazy. "One day, I'll blow all of it up."

The words hung in the air between them, laden and salty and a tiny bit poisoned. Arthur laughed, unamused. "If you say so," he pressed out when he stepped back from another of Merlin's crazypades and turned around.

Merlin's hand was on his shoulder a moment later, forcing him back around, then back and back, until Arthur crashed into the low kitchen table and was forced across it, Merlin in his face.

"I could do as a freak. I'd show them all," he said. "I'll go down tomorrow and show them all."

"You're no freak," Arthur said, careful, moved his hand up to Merlin's shoulder, his face. Merlin's eyes were brimming with gold and a few tears.

"Maybe a pretty then," Merlin muttered, a little more petulant and annoyed, and Arthur chuckled and moved Merlin up, straightened them both until Merlin stood between Arthur's spread legs.

"You're no pretty," Arthur said. He leaned in, dragged his nose along Merlin's jaw and inhaled him, sweat and stink and the residual tang of magic pouring from him. He pressed his lips to Merlin's jawline and Merlin's lips, pulled him in close until Merlin kissed him back, his fingers curled into the back of Arthur's coat. Merlin was so warm and right there and alive and all Merlin that Arthur forgot his aching muscles.

"They wouldn't shoot me dead," Merlin said when they broke apart.

Arthur wished he could say the same with the same conviction. He angled for his bag of goods, pulled out the water to share first thing and leaned down for the screws, smiling when Merlin's giddy grin stretched all the way across his face.

"I'll fix it yet," Merlin said, water still clinging to his lips as he weighed his bag in one hand, then took it to his corner with the radio and the others things he swore to all hells to Arthur he could get working again.

Arthur pulled out the paper and settled on his own cot, against the wall underneath the windows again. The scribbled out and reprinted annotations and sidenotes that served as their propaganda-free press made it easy to remember when they were hiding away like cowards, more dead than alive most days in the shittiest part of town.

"Uther retracted the addendum," he said after a moment, reading, then rereading the line he'd heard whispered about when queueing at the factory. Word on the street went strong these days.

"Hm," Merlin replied from across the room, fiddling with the radio.

He could have me killed now, is what Arthur didn't say because it wouldn't get them anywhere. If anything it'd have Merlin sneak out of the flat by night, sacrificing himself to protect everyone else and be found dead by the morning. Merlin cocked his head at him, waiting, but Arthur only smudged his thumb across the print and the old photo of his face declaring him one of the most dangerous traitors to the Empire.

Arthur stretched up and looked out over the window sill, half expecting the 'copters with their flood lights trained on them. The street was settling into its nightly quiet though.

"Elena's tonight," Arthur said instead, leaning back against the wall, then thinking better of it and angling for his fags, anything to calm the nerves and give him something to do. "She'll have apples."

"She'll have cheese, too," Merlin replied. He stared down at his radio for a moment, concentrated and the whir in the air noted the onset of magic. Arthur tensed, listening out for the alarm and the sirens, but a moment later Merlin relaxed again and turned the knobs. Still nothing. He tossed the radio to the side and shoved back to the wall, fingers clenched into fists.

"You'll figure it out," Arthur said.

Merlin stared at him from across the room. "Like I figured out your telly?" he bit out, cutting through the walls of their past.

Uther had found them, Merlin's fingertips touching the dead telly and sparking pure magic and stellar reception, while the rest of the house, Uther's secretaries and ministers, the Empire HQ bustling their arses off, were publishing decree after decree that cut off the air of anyone daring to so much as sizzle with a bit of left over energy that could bring this place to its knees.

Arthur had shoved Merlin out in that one half moment of Uther's inaction, hissed at him to go and piss the fuck out of his life, that he never wanted to see his face again. He'd put all his disgust and anger into it, and Merlin, for once in his life, hadn't stopped to argue and had left, had walked out of the mansion and out of his life.

"Yes," Arthur said without fire but a good lot of mirth instead. "Like you fixed the egg timer, too." He grabbed it from the nearby shelf, turned it on and watched it go, the steady tic tic tic until clang it stopped.

Merlin just looked longingly at the old telly they'd pulled from an abandoned flat, probably itching to get his fingers on that, but the amount of magic would set off any of the sensors in the vicinity and none of Merlin's books quite explained how to fix up tellies without magic.

Merlin hummed as he worked, keeping them both company with it, and Arthur noticed himself humming along only after Merlin stopped and had raised an eyebrow at him. Arthur grabbed for the pack of fags and threw it in Merlin's general direction but it dropped to the floor somewhere between them instead. Merlin cackled with dumb idiot amusement.

"You're smiling," Merlin said when he'd calmed down.

"Rubbish," Arthur replied and forced the corners of his mouth down. They didn't immediately obey, but he kept the chuckle deep in his chest.

"I miss you smiling." Merlin twirled the screwdriver between his fingers and only glanced up to actually meet Arthur's eyes a few moments later.

"Me too," Arthur said, shrugged and the urge to smile gone, because things were what they were.

The curfew siren sounded.

"We'll give it ten," Arthur said and straightened, retrieved his fags from the middle of the floor to light another one. At night the city looked different, showing none of the chasms and the ugly, and looking like it had in pictures in their text books.

Merlin came up behind him, tap tap of his feet slow and distinct. He snuck his arm around Arthur's middle and pressed his face, cold nose and warm lips, to Arthur's back, inhaling and exhaling slowly. Merlin's fingers skirted downwards, playing over Arthur's crotch, but Arthur caught them before they could do more than just touch.

"Not now."

"You should let me. I'm the reason why..." Merlin trailed off when Arthur shook his head sharply and sucked on the filter of the cigarette, then stubbed it out on the window sill.

"I'd get a pretty if I wanted that."

"You wouldn't though," Merlin said as Arthur pulled out of his embrace to collect his coat and the paper. "You know you'd be sucking your father's dick before you'd ever get your mouth on theirs."

"Crude," Arthur said, waiting for Merlin to rage for a while, but Merlin caught himself with a dismissive glance in Arthur's direction and grabbed his own jacket from the pile of clothes in the corner.

They didn't talk as they left the flat through the back entrance, ducked around street corners to avoid the patrols and the sensors as well as the more shady regular inhabitants of their part of the city. Arthur pulled Merlin into a doorway more than once, flattened them both to the house front in the shadows when a group of thugs passed right in front of them. As much as they were all on the same side during the faint smoggy day hours, past curfew this became a dog eat dog world.

Elena's place was on the other side of the district, past the dumps and exile where the blocks grew higher again, the streets a little busier, and the curfew was lifted as they crossed from one side of the street to the other.

"Patrol," Merlin hissed a split second before Arthur saw them and they both got caught in the glare of the lights. They stood stock still, Arthur's fingers curled into the fabric of Merlin's jacket, fingers twitching to pull the hood of his coat over his face, feet jerking to take off at a full run. The lights passed over them and moved on, no alarm going off.

"Move," Arthur said from the corner of his lips and they picked up their quick, huddled walk through the side streets again.

At Elena's Arthur muttered the pass phrase, then pulled Merlin into the stairwell after him, taking the steps to the fourth floor at a jog. Merlin's steps were lighter than his own, his breath a bit louder and hotter when he stumbled into Arthur's back on Elena's landing. Arthur pulled him into the flat.

Elena hugged Merlin first, then him. "You'll get yourself killed one day," she whispered into Arthur's hair, her bony little fingers digging into his shoulder blades, pulling him down by tugging on the hair on the nape of his neck.

"I'm being careful," Arthur said. "Fuck, you know I'm being careful."

They both watched Merlin walk off towards the back of the flat, towards the warm light and low murmur of voices, a few laughs.

"Leon says he heard something. Talk to him, hm?" She patted Arthur's chest and left him standing in the dark hallway.

Arthur shrugged out of his coat and tried not to count up the near misses over the past years: when his father had first declared him traitor, the moments he'd had to duck out of sight when patrols came, the near heart attack during minutes spent pressed to the space just under the window sill when the 'copters' lights brightened every last corner of their shitshow of a flat. The rest of them, when every word he'd said to people he'd trusted with his life got turned this way and that when they thought he'd rat all of them out in a heartbeat.

When Arthur stepped into the living room under nods and hellos and found his space in the corner, had Elena press a cup of gorgeous hot tea into his hand, the discussion was in full swing already.

"They're talking about tagging now," Gwaine said, lounging against the radiator that clicked every once in a while with air. He was smoking the good fags, probably fucked his way through a good number of Uther's Reds to get them, too. "They want to tag us like dogs and scan our every movement. They're going to know when we go out and take a shit."

"When did you last go out to take a shit?" Percival threw in and caught the empty cigs packet easily when it went flying at his head.

"He's going to step up patrols," Arthur said in the resulting, contemplative lull in conversation. "He knows we're out here, not just... me, not just us, but he knows we're everywhere. He'll try everything to stop us."

They all fell silent when the roar of a 'copter crept along the outer wall, listened to it. Gwaine was watching him, speculative, and Arthur was staring right back at him. The guy kept his words to himself though, just bit into an apple and munched, all juice and crunching sounds.

Merlin was sitting by himself, fumbling with an old hard drive, fingers skirting over the small knobs and bumps and circuits, tracing the same route over and over again. The roar was deafening with the 'copter right above them. Merlin looked up, fingernail scratching at the circuit.

Arthur leaned across and reached out, closed his fingers around Merlin's wrist and he felt the vibration under his skin, the sheer energy barely contained by a bit of flesh and blood and sinews. Thumb brushing across the ridge of bone and knuckles, Arthur tried to calm him, calm himself too. Then the 'copter veered off, all of them breathing easy again, sending secret and not so secret looks in Merlin's direction.

Merlin dropped the hard drive where he sat and walked out of the room.

"He's closing in," Leon said, lighting a fag as he plopped down next to Arthur in Merlin's stead. He turned the hard drive this way and that. "Not just you, mind, not just you, but you're the poster boy for everything that stands in his way."

"Literally," Arthur mouthed, thinking of his photo in the paper this week, plastered across town by the next. That would have always been Uther's last resort. "Merlin's nearly got the radio working," Arthur said instead of thinking about his father's cold wrath and the way his stomach had stuck in his throat after Arthur had sent Merlin to piss the fuck off. Uther had never bought it, even when Arthur had still wholeheartedly believed in the system that allowed him to frolic through the mansion and never have to fear a thing while the world outside was breaking apart.

"That'd help," Leon admitted, nodding. "I know others have radios, they use some frequencies to organise, send messages out."

Arthur nodded. "It would help." He played with the two credit chips left over from the day in the factory, building the next big thing to aid the system. Compromises were the only thing they were surviving on.

Merlin had crept back into the room, one of the homebrews in his hand, and sat next to Percival, fingers drumming on his thigh until Percival smacked his hand down and stilled Merlin's fingers, even got a smile out of him for his trouble. Merlin drank the piss alcohol down instead, watching Arthur from across the room, and like every single moment like this, Arthur was waiting for the final rejection then and there. A moment later though, Merlin's attention was focused elsewhere, his eyes wobbling about from the smoke and the alcohol.

Every time Arthur skimmed the missed people leaflets a group of them were handing out around the blocks, he wondered when Merlin's name might appear because he'd fucked up, showed his face one time too many where someone could recognize him or because he'd been in Merlin's face one time too many and made him drop it all.

"Most days I wonder if he thinks I'll take him by the scruff and deliver him singlehandedly to Uther's gates," Arthur said under his breath before he sucked on the fag, wishing they didn't live in that stinking bit of hole that kept them somewhat safe and that Merlin wasn't that nervous bundle of energy that could go off any second.

"He's not the only one," Leon replied.

Arthur snapped around but Leon just shrugged and leaned back against the wall while Gwaine was going on about the philosophies of fascist systems and the nobility of underground resistance movements. "We're fucking knights, we are," Gwaine said, brushing his thumb at the juice leaking from his lips.

"I wouldn't," Arthur said, paused, then added, "I think."

Leon shrugged again. "As good as it gets, isn't it? You still going to the factory?"

"It's the factory or selling my mouth to the cocks who want to fuck it," Arthur gave back, cutting through with the crude, scoffing his shoes at the makeshift rug, careful not to upend the cup of tea.

"Serve the system, Arthur?"

"I'd be delivered to Uther if I even tried it as a pretty."

"You've thought about it..."

"If I had any choice I wouldn't build things that will kill us all." Arthur listened to the sirens outside, picking up someone, gunning down someone, prison and exile and death for everyone who stepped out of line. "Does Gwaine still think I'm a traitor?"

"He's coming around."

Gwaine and Merlin were talking, heads bent together, hushed whispers no one could make out. They shared a laugh and a smile and Merlin hugged Gwaine briefly, butted his head against Gwaine's shoulder. Gwaine wrestled him to the floor and pinned him. Wanting to be that for Merlin poked at Arthur's insides, the bit of jealousy and envy when all he got to take home was Merlin who flew into tempers and the shouting matches that should have brought the patrols down on their heads weeks ago.

He'd found Merlin with Gwaine when he'd first come looking, dodging his father's men at every turn, sleeping in doorways and getting skinned by every last thug. He'd stepped too close and had had Merlin's cold eyes on him, Gwaine's knife cutting into his throat, and something he must have said, pleading and bleeding and dropping to his knees laying down his life, had made Gwaine drop him and Merlin take him back.

"Word is they'll have a raid soon," Elyan said as he stepped in through the door, Gwen just behind him. He slipped off his coat and they sat in the circle, huddled together like most nights. "With the new laws signed into effect, well, there's nothing they can't do." He patted himself down for some fags and Arthur lobbed his packet over to him, giving them both a nod when Gwen lit a cigarette then shared with her brother.

"He doesn't have the man power yet, nor the information," Arthur said. Gwaine scoffed, but Arthur just shrugged. "If he had the power, if he knew where to start, he'd be here already and we'd all be dead or dragged down to hang from the walls as if this was something from the history books." He turned the pack of fags over and over again. "I figure if we're not dead then we still have a chance, don't we?"

"Rousing speech," Leon said from the corner before he shoved some more of the food into his mouth.

"Thanks." Arthur shoved the cigarettes into his pocket and leaned back against the wall to watch them all, their bundle of scraggly haired, haggard and half-broken bits and pieces that scraped through the sewers by fucking and haggling and slipsliding their way through the gaps in the system. Gwen leaned with her face pressed to Elyan's neck, whispering about their secrets, and Arthur only vaguely remembered the story about their father and Uther's involvement in it all.

Later in the kitchen, he stood alone as he was sipping the piss alcohol, just to get a tiny bit of buzz into his system.

"The fool would still die for you," Gwaine said from the doorway while Merlin was laughing too loudly in the other room.

"I haven't managed to beat it out of him yet." Arthur leaned against the window sill and tried to keep Gwaine from getting under his skin.

"Not for lack of trying, I'm sure."

Arthur sipped from the alcohol and watched Gwaine do the same. He counted the beats until the tension dropped.

"He'd die for you."

Arthur nodded. "I wouldn't be here if I wasn't prepared to die for him."

"Uther won't stop hunting you down until he has you on your knees for him again."

"It's not only about me." Arthur laughed, but Gwaine didn't join in. "It's not."

Merlin appeared in the doorway behind Gwaine, glanced past him at Arthur, to the alcohol Arthur was still holding, then crossed the room and took it, drank.

"No one's dying," Merlin said. He rubbed his thumb along the glass, drawing a faint line of light through the milky fog of old glass that made Arthur's heart ache. He brought the glass to his lips and drained it, swaying against Arthur's body before pushing away again and stumbling back into the other room, landing on top of someone by the sound of the squeals and laughter.

"You heard him," Arthur said and made to move past Gwaine himself.

"I don't trust you," Gwaine said. He had his fingers closed around Arthur's wrist.

"I'd noticed," Arthur gave back and rolled his eyes when Gwaine did.

Back in the room Merlin was telling a silly story, amusing Percy with made up tales about mice and men, and Arthur settled in the corner with Leon and Elyan, smoothly sliding back into a discussion of the few contingency plans they had in place. They talked war and underground tactics as if any of them had done much more than read a few adventure books decades ago. Printed words made death look heroic, being here turned it a lot more vulgar.

"They're already trying to cut into the distribution of the paper," Leon said. "It's the only thing we have here right now. There's word from elsewhere that they got the tech working for them, communication on the sly, but until we have that, if we lose the paper, we're down to working the streets with word of mouth and he'd only need to send a few of his men out to undercut that."

"We need alternatives," Arthur said, when the sirens sounded close, too close. "Fuck."

All of them dove for the few lights, flattened themselves to floors and walls, while the roar of the 'copters rung overhead. Was this the moment when they'd be a number in the raided-and-persecuted head count? There were shouts outside, still a block over, certainly no-one breaking down their door, but they all knew what to do anyway. They didn't talk, no hushed whispers and none of the laughter from earlier, not even time for goodbyes. They only crawled across the floor towards the door and backdoor, splitting into groups naturally. In the near-darkness of the flat, Arthur memorized all of them, Gwaine's fine sense of nobility, no irony, Percy's strength and so forth, burning them into his brain because by morning they could be floating face down in an oily puddle. He grabbed Merlin by his shirt and dragged him down the corridor and out into the staircase.

"I could blow them all away," Merlin hissed into Arthur's ear just before Arthur opened the door to peek outside, being stupid and reckless when the magic began to burn through him and only Arthur's slap to the back of his head cut the cord.

Arthur wished he'd had less to drink, that they'd both had had less to drink, leaving brains and legs less muzzy and fucked up. He ignored Merlin's muttering, his flailing arms and pinched face, the way he clung to Arthur despite it, and just hauled him out into the street and down an alley a split second before a patrol passed behind them. Their own hole was only marginally safer than the streets but it was comfortable at least, amidst trinkets and Mickey Mouse's ever grinning stupid face.

They ducked around the roundabout way, past dumps and dumpsters, through dried-out riverbeds, sinking knee deep into the junk of the modern cities. The shit pulled at their clothes, tried to drag them down. From the other side of the bed someone shouted at them to get the fuck down, but they were sitting ducks here, so Arthur just dragged Merlin on and on further until they'd made it into the shade of high blocked again.

Arthur ignored the stupid things Merlin was saying, a bit drunk and raging against the system more, repeating meaningless book drivel Gwaine had hand-fed him as if they could use any of it when the 'copters where circling above the blocks.

"Down," Arthur hissed, and pulled Merlin into a narrow doorway, pushed them both to the floor, while lights passed over their heads.

Uther's photo was in the recruitment shop window opposite the open doorway. As machinery passed, whizzing gears and wheels and all the luxury none of them had anymore, it got obscured, then freed for view again every few moments.

Some days, when he was sitting up and Merlin was asleep, when the city was calm, he imagined walking up to the gates and letting himself in. He imagined walking into his room to lie down on his bed, then coming down for breakfast (toast, hot milk) and watching his father have coffee and read the paper, wish him a good day. He imagined the soft carpet under his bare feet, his father's hand in his hair, the sense of pride and accomplishment.

Merlin followed Arthur's gaze. "You don't belong here," Merlin said, dragging the words out with force while he was pressed close enough to Arthur that Arthur didn't think Merlin could ever let him go.

"I'll buy apples tomorrow," Arthur whispered, reaching into his pocket for the two credit chips still in there from earlier. "If we make it through tonight."

The last of the patrol passed, and Arthur didn't spare Uther's photo another glance or thought, only pushed on through the narrow alleys. They crept back into their own block like thieves. Arthur waited for the precious five seconds between search lights, hoping that the shouts in the distance were moving away and not closer, then hauled Merlin along with him and dragged him in through the door. They fled up the stairs and into their hole, door falling into the lock behind them as they tumbled to the floor.

Explosions rang in the distance, screams and shouts, and the flicker of lights illuminated their scraggly collection of home every few moments as 'copters searched. They both scrambled to the windows to hide out of sight. Merlin lacked coordination and stealth and everything that would keep him alive for longer than five minutes outside, but crammed himself into the corner nonetheless, watching the lights while Arthur was watching him.

"I left my fags at Elena's," Arthur said as he patted himself down. His hands were shaking, nerves, adrenaline, while an explosion sounded closer.

"Hm." Merlin reached up and pulled a screwdriver from the low shelf. He began to tap it against his knee, the mud from the river bed dampening the sound. Around the hilt of it, his fingers began to glow.

A 'copter passed by outside, lights dragging across the wall opposite them.

Arthur watched Merlin, what else could he do for idiotic, selfish arseholes, and wished he had a smoke. "Just let them take you then," he said.

"It'd make it better, wouldn't it? If Uther had me and could kill me."

"Yes." Arthur leaned back against the sill, feeling the low pulse of Merlin's magic in the room. "I'd dance on your fucking grave."

The magic cut off abruptly, leaving the room cold and Arthur freezing. The water was still in the kitchen and he'd have to leave the cover to get it, not quite daring that yet. Outside the window, down on the street, a group of people were talking, the hurried, harried conversations of the chased not the chasers, the angry shouts, a few shots.

"I could go down to recruitment tomorrow and have them take me. They'd know who I am, in a heartbeat. Maybe it'd stop."

"You'd stop all this."

"Maybe." Arthur looked across to Merlin again. Merlin was poking at the dead radio as if destruction was the new magic force that could get things going again.

"It's not just us." Merlin shrugged, then stood and crossed the room to his cot on the far wall. The lights of the 'copter outside moved over his body, illuminating the ridges and valleys of his bony back, the shift of fabric across his shoulders, then let him disappear in the darkness of the flat again. Merlin turned to Arthur, turned to the windows really, and just stood there, mud-caked trousers and shirt, dead radio in his hand. "I read these books," Merlin said when he settled on his cot. "And I suppose my mum told me these stories, how things wouldn't last like this, how it'd be better after."

Arthur snorted into Merlin's pause, then regretted it because he'd had the same dreams of not thinking about death every day, of not living in this shithole, of not considering selling his body for sex or his organs for credits so they'd continue existing for another day, another week maybe.

"It will get better," Arthur said, through his lack of conviction, and Merlin laughed, sounding broken and broken-hearted.

The lights of the 'copter played across his face when he crawled back across the floor to Arthur. Arthur forced his hands to the grimy floor boards and his body still, trying his damnedest not to reach out and pull Merlin down. "Are you promising me the world?"

"Pretty much." Arthur tilted his chin up when Merlin crept close and closer, finding space between Arthur's legs and the wall, tangling himself up onto Arthur's lap.

"I saw your face," Merlin said as he pushed his nose against Arthur's jaw. Arthur let him. "I saw your face when I touched the telly, and everything sparked."

"Yeah?"

Merlin paused, lips hovering over Arthur's. Arthur's lips had had dicks and tongues, arses and endless amounts of skin, nuzzling sucking biting. Merlin's lips had had screwdrivers and screws, apples and water and nothing much else.

Merlin leaned in closer, eyes open and when he spoke, his voice rasped over the words. "Are you still afraid of me now?"

Arthur felt the heat of Merlin's magic through his clothes when the sounds of fighting and uproar continued in the distance. He curled his fingers into the hair at the nape of Merlin's neck and pulled him down, gave his lips something that didn't taste of metal or the unexplainable to play with. Merlin's tongue swiped into Arthur's mouth as Merlin pressed himself impossibly closer, his knees pressing hard into the muscle of Arthur's thigh before he'd arranged himself into a crouch above Arthur's lap.

"Are you?" Merlin asked again, but Arthur just pulled him closer and pushed his hips up against Merlin's, sucking up the moan from Merlin's lips and hoping he forgot about the questions and answers and the ball of fucking fear in Arthur's chest altogether.

Any moment now, a 'copter could rip into this, a scan picking up on Merlin's energy readings and blasting them into a thousand pieces, but Arthur only pulled Merlin closer and laughed at Merlin's nervous moan and squawk of surprise when Arthur pressed his hips up and Merlin pressed his hips down.

Arthur slipped his hand under the hem of Merlin's shirt, down to the curve of his arse and urged him to ride up against him again. Merlin was hot, cock hard inside his messed up trousers, hotter than the flare of magic that still stole across Arthur's chest wherever Merlin's fingers touched. More explosions went off in the distance, and Arthur hoped the others were safe.

Merlin's eyes were closed as he pushed his crotch down against Arthur's, met every thrust with one of his own. The light played across his face, sweaty, dirty, eyes only half open. Arthur reached up and slid his hand over Merlin's on his chest, threaded their fingers. Merlin's magic pulsed, the steady sizzle and vibration that mixed with the low arousal in his groin, the rub and tug and push with every grind up against Merlin.

The roar of the 'copter got louder and louder as it passed by in front of their window, lighting up their flat like mid-day mid-summer, past the grime and the smog and the stink of the city, when they lay in front of the open windows and imagined paintings on the wall and a free world to walk in. Someone screamed far away, but Merlin's face only tightened as he pushed harder against Arthur's body.

The sounds on Merlin's lips, arousal and whine and fucking mourning, spilled into Arthur's mouth but he let up, curled his fingers into Arthur's shirt instead and held on as he pressed his cock against Arthur's and rutted away. The warmth of the magic dissipated as the arousal grew, harder and hotter and consuming all of Arthur's. Merlin was panting against his lips, then buried his face in the crook of Arthur's neck, and his breath fanned warm and damp across Arthur's skin.

Every push of Merlin's hip thumped Arthur against the wall, skin bruising over his bones as he pushed back up. He clamped his fingers around Merlin's waist and kept him there as he pushed up against him, enjoyed the sounds Merlin was making while the world around them was going to hell.

"I'm not now," Arthur whispered against Merlin's ear as he pulled him in close, sweaty and stinking of riverbed and the city. His nose buried in Merlin's hair, lips over his ear, he pushed up once, twice, then Merlin's teeth sank into his skin, shout muffled, and he came himself. "I'm not afraid now," he said, harsh and too loud and lacking all of the supposed romance of the big statements.

Merlin ground down again and again, milking the last of it, while Arthur shuddered through the orgasm, toes curled and muscles stiff and aching.

"That's good," Merlin whispered as he shifted, tried to rearrange himself on top of Arthur, alongside Arthur, until they both lay tangled on Arthur's cot. "I'm scared shitless more often than not."

The 'copters had quieted, faint shouts and the first of the winter sun that bathed the sky in a somewhat lighter grey replaced the terrors of the night. Merlin was curled against Arthur's side, limbs twitching in half-sleep, hair wild. His fingers were gripping Arthur's in a death grip, tightening every time Arthur moved just a little.

Arthur let Merlin have this and tried not to think about this new day, the things they needed to survive and the metaphorical bullets he'd have to dodge to get to them. Thoughts of Elena and Percy and Gwaine, Gwen and Elyan and Leon tried to invade but he shoved them down and out when the first flutters of panic settled in his gut at their barely existing chances being dashed so soon in this.

Arthur reached across Merlin's body and fished for the stupid radio, pulling a forgotten cigarette out from under the shelves with it. He lit it in that first new dawn, inhaling deeply, and thumbed over the dials on the radio, the broken membrane where Merlin had stopped caring. Fag stuck in the corner of his lips, he poked his screwdriver at the screws, tightened them here and there, loosened others. He turned the dial again, but the radio didn't make a sound.

Merlin muttered something in his sleep, and Arthur slid back down to lie next to him, resting the radio on his chest as he sucked on his cigarette, then blew the smoke towards the ceiling. Mickey Mouse was watching from the corner, grinning stupidly, when Arthur held the radio up above his head and whistled the kind of tune it should make, something to dance to, something to be silly about.

Arthur fucking missed something to be silly about, but then, he had Merlin, hm?


End file.
